Person:
Cirera, Xavier

Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice
Profile Picture
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Degrees
External Links
Departments
Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated August 7, 2023
Biography
Xavier Cirera is a senior economist in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice of the World Bank. His work focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship. He has led the evaluation of innovation policies, including through the development of public expenditure reviews in science, technology, and innovation implemented in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ukraine, and Vietnam. He is the coauthor of The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up and A Practitioner’s Guide to Innovation Policy: Instruments to Build Firm Capabilities and Accelerate Technological Catch-Up in Developing Countries. His most recent work focuses on the measurement and impact of technology adoption and diffusion. Before joining the World Bank, he served as a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Sussex.
Citations 28 Scopus

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Exporting and Technology Adoption in Brazil
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-15) Cirera, Xavier ; Comin, Diego ; Cruz, Marcio ; Lee, Kyung Min ; Martins-Neto, Antonio
    There is limited evidence on the role of participating in international trade in the diffusion of technologies. This paper analyzes the impact of exporting on firms’ adoption of more sophisticated technologies, using a novel dataset, the Firm-level Adoption of Technology survey, which includes more than 1,500 firms in Brazil. The survey provides detailed information on the use of more than 300 technologies, combined with data from Brazil’s census of formal workers and export data from the Ministry of Trade. To address critical endogeneity concerns, the analysis applies difference-in-differences with multiple periods to examine the effects of entering export markets on technology adoption. The findings show that exporting has a positive effect on firms’ likelihood of adopting advanced technologies in business functions related to business administration, production planning, supply chain management, and quality control, which are important for managing tasks associated with export activities.